Ray Mabus was born in Choctaw County, Mississippi, on October 11, 1948. He attended Ackerman public schools and graduated from the University of Mississippi in 1969. In 1970, he received a Master's Degree in government from John Hopkins University. He graduated Magna Cum Laude from Harvard Law School in 1976.

He  worked as chief assistant to Governor William Winter from the years of 1980 to 1984. He drafted the Education Reform Act of 1982. This was the first major state education reform of the 1980s. He was state auditor from the years of 1983 to 1987. In 1987 he was elected Governor of Mississippi.

He pushed through landmark education legislation called Mississippi BEST (Better Education for Success Tomorrow). He was chair of the Southern Governors' Association and the Southern Regional Education Board and honorary co-chair of the United Negro College Fund in Mississippi. He served as president of the Council of State Governments. He was named one of the nation's top 10 education Governors by Fortune Magazine and received the Social Responsibility Award from the Martin Luther King Jr. Center for Nonviolent Social Change in 1990.

 After serving as Mississippi's Governor, he served the country as an Ambassador to Saudi Arabia.